Paradox Witch
by mak5258
Summary: Six days after Severus had returned to Spinner's End for the summer, a witch crossed the line of his wards, walked through his front door, and sat on the edge of the sofa that she shouldn't have been able to see. She smiled at him, and then she vanished, leaving her clothes and belongings behind.
1. Chapter 1 (July 1993)

It always took Severus a few days to adjust to Spinner's End. It wasn't the house so much as it was being away from Hogwarts, the sprawling grounds, the portraits, the _people_. There were so many people at the castle, and just him at his childhood home. Most left him alone at the castle, true, but there was always the potential that the headmaster or the other Heads would seek him out. None of that in the Muggle neighborhood.

He'd been home for just less than a week. While he still half expected one of his Slytherins to knock on the door to his study in the afternoon, he was comfortable again. It was quiet. The neighborhood was still awful, impoverished and dirty, but his house had become his own private haven over the years. Not even Dumbledore knew that.

Severus had inherited his parents' house at twenty years old. The conclusion to their disaster of a relationship had been statistically inevitable, and he'd hardened his heart to it years before it had happened. He'd been at Malfoy Manor, surrounded by Death Eaters, at the time. They'd toasted the death of a blood-traitor and a foul Muggle man. Severus had mourned his mother in private, and hadn't given his father much thought.

After the war, he'd returned to the house that was his and considered burning it to the ground. But it was where he'd lived when he'd been Lily's friend, and, really, it was all he had. He'd taken it upon himself to transform the place. His father would have _hated_ the changes, which made it that much better.

If somebody were to enter without his permission, they would see the house as it had been. It was a clever illusion. There were dusty light fixtures, pocked floorboards and broken furniture. The whole place appeared dark and dreary. The rooms would seem small, grimy, oppressively closed-in.

If he invited somebody through the illusion, they could see the house as he'd made it. He'd fixed it up the Muggle way with proper tools first, mending the broken banister and bleaching out the rot from the cellar. Then he'd gone further. He'd Expanded the rooms, he'd added light and color and decent furniture. He'd created spells of his own. The front hall had a charmed coat tree that helped him off with his cloak, and the plank hardwood was glossy and clean. The kitchen was small, but the pantry was fully stocked (as it had never been when he was a child). The cellar had been turned into a laboratory, fully outfitted like his space at Hogwarts (though his materials were better quality since he didn't buy them as sturdy stock in bulk for students). The sitting room was mostly library, though there were comfortable chairs and a sofa that matched each other clustered by the fireplace. One of the bookcases in the sitting room hid the door to the stairs (as it did in the illusion of the room, as well, though in the illusion it creaked horribly, as did the steps). The upstairs was airy and homey. He'd gutted his parents' room and turned it into his study, with a big desk and many charmed and indexed file cabinets. His own bedroom had more windows than it appeared to from the outside.

He'd changed more than just the physical space, of course. The sink had been enchanted to wash the dishes by itself, and the cabinets opened their doors as the dishes put themselves away when they were clean. The kettle kept itself full and hot so that he could have tea at any moment. All the food stayed fresh in the pantry, even the things that needed to be stored cold. The fireplace fed warmth into the Muggle radiators (an enchantment he was particularly proud of). His books shelved themselves if he left them out, but not if he set them on his nightstand or on the desk in his office. The curtains opened and closed themselves at the appropriate times. His bed made itself. Anything he put in the hamper laundered itself overnight and sorted itself back into his wardrobe or the linen cupboard as appropriate.

He'd spent _years_ perfecting the charms and adding new ones. It was his ongoing summer project. At the school, he'd make notes to himself when an idea struck, but he mostly focused on his work and on potions research. In the summer, he focused on his house with the occasional dalliance in potions. He bumped along very nicely, in his own opinion.

Then, six days after he'd returned to Spinner's End, a woman (a witch) crossed the line of his wards, walked through his front door, and sat on the edge of the sofa that she shouldn't have been able to see. She smiled at him, and then she vanished, leaving her clothes and belongings behind.

\\\

In London, Hermione Granger, age thirteen, screamed herself awake.


	2. Chapter 2 (July 1993)

Severus spent six hours confirming that it hadn't been a golem or some other form of trickery, and that none of what remained was cursed or otherwise designed to cause him harm. Remarkably, there was no DNA residue, no stray hairs on the robes (and the witch, from the brief glimpse he'd had of her, had had a _lot_ of hair). Nothing.

He examined the robes, the elastic hair tie, the leather cuff-style bracelet, the worn canvas purse that had been charmed to be more durable than it should have been. There was a small, simple glass bottle sealed with wax in the inside pocket of the robes; it contained a silvery strand of memory, and was labeled 'PARADOX' in his own hand.

Severus owled Dumbledore to request the use of his Pensieve, and set the memory aside. While he waited for the headmaster's response, he emptied the bag across the dining room table and examined the things that it had contained.

A cotton shift nightgown with a bra and two pairs of plain white knickers rolled up inside of it. A black button-down shirt. A hairbrush. A small tub of vanilla-scented hair cream. A zipper bag with a roll of gauze, six vials containing standard healing potions, a bezoar, and a tube of antiseptic paste. Three pairs of socks rolled into neat balls. A battered, dog-eared, water-damaged copy of _Dune_ , its binding held together by Spell-o Tape.

The items weren't particularly interesting in and of themselves. The clothes looked about the right size to belong to the witch who had vanished. The personal items and first aid kit hadn't been spelled or otherwise supplemented. It might as well have been an overnight bag for a particularly light packer.

The clothes she'd been wearing were more intriguing. The robe was wool, reinforced with the same spells he habitually cast on his teaching robes to protect against potions-related incidents, and very plain. It was a washed-out gray color that might actually have been black a decade or two before. Her boots were leather, worn and scuffed and faded but spelled and reinforced exactly the way he protected the boots he wore when he taught. The wool trousers and button-down shirt were also old and well cared-for, the colors faded (the trousers had probably started gray, and the shirt coppery red, maybe orange) but hardly going threadbare.

It was odd that she hadn't had a wand with her at all.

More odd was the vial of memory with his handwriting on the label. Luckily, he'd only just finished going over the robe a third time for missed secret pockets or items sewn into seams when the Pensieve arrived in a burst of phoenix flame.

After casting a few more detecting charms, he placed the memory into the stone basin and watched it swirl.

"Well," he said to himself, then he lowered his face into the basin.

The memory took place in what could only be described as an _opulent_ potions laboratory. It was the sort of place he'd planned out for himself when he'd been an apprentice, dreaming of the full range of his own potential. The counters were exactly the right height, the shelving endless, the cauldrons gleaming in every useful variation from standard pewter to specialized silver. There were knives of all sorts, a center-island with a wooden countertop glossy with non-reactive resin. And the attached ingredients store room was almost as large as the laboratory.

He was immediately jealous of the man in the memory. He was tall and thin, long silver-white hair drawn back into a tail and glossy with Standard Potioneers' Grease to keep stray strands from ruining a brew. His robes were as opulent as the room, charcoal cloth swirling with Slytherin-green embroidery over an immaculate Potion Master's frock coat. Polished dragonhide boots.

The man, the Potions Master, worked deftly. There were three cauldrons in use. Timing spells glowed faintly above two of the cauldrons, one simmering and the other cooling. The Potions Master stirred the third cauldron with even turns of his wrist, the thick glass stirring rod sweeping around in a figure-eight.

"Set," the witch from Severus's sitting room said, walking out of the ingredients room. She carried a tray of assorted ingredients, already prepared for the Master's use.

The Master said nothing, but withdrew the stirring rod and picked up the first ingredient on the tray. The witch moved to the first cauldron, picking up a fresh stirring rod (this one a thin copper rod with a crook in the end) and stirring slowly counter-clockwise.

They worked in near silence. The Master's potion quickly reduced to a crusty paste that frothed like vinegar and baking soda when the witch's potion was added. Then came a rush of adding ingredients, stirring, adjusting heat, changing cauldrons, and, eventually, pouring the final potion into a goblet that had been kept chilled like a salad plate.

The two stared at the goblet. It sat there, a thin waft of white steam curling up from the potion. Severus moved closer to see that the potion itself was a vivid blue and smelled a bit like overcooked turnips.

"Are you ready?" the Master asked, and Severus's head jerked around to take a second look at the man. It was _him_. Himself. Severus Snape.

But it wasn't him. It _couldn't_ be him. The wizard in the memory was old. Very old. His hair was silver instead of black, going to white at the temples. His face was deeply wrinkled, especially the parenthesis lines around his mouth. His hands were almost translucent, the veins showing blue through his skin.

He was unstooped, his movement still sure. He had to be at least eighty years old, though. Perhaps more. Surely not one hundred.

Severus turned to the witch, looking at her more closely. His other, older self was watching her as she went through the things he'd just spread across the dining table. Her clothes were at the bottom, cushioning the first aid kit. The cover of the book caught on the edge of the bag as she put it in and tore, and the old Severus patiently took it from her and repaired it with more Spell-o Tape. The hairbrush had a few strands of hair stuck in the bristles.

He couldn't place her at first, but it was the hair that was telling. It was a mass of unruly curls, strands frizzing around her face despite the ponytail. The robes might have been tailored for somebody else, or perhaps had been tailored for her before the lean times, and she was certainly experiencing lean times. She was skeletally thin, almost frail-looking. She was average height, could have been pretty if she wasn't so malnourished. She had hazel eyes, piercing and intelligent in bruised sockets.

Mostly, she was a very average-looking witch. Her robes were nondescript. Too big for her, and with no particular decoration. He couldn't guess her age other than that she wasn't particularly young or particularly old.

But the hair. Curls everywhere, the frizz growing more pronounced the longer she worked on their potion. He'd watched that exact hair do the same thing over the course of Potions lessons for the past two years.

Hermione Granger. A middle-aged Hermione Granger fallen on rough times.

In the memory, Granger put her bag over her shoulder and smiled at the old man that he was still having a hard time reconciling to be himself.

"Well?" she asked, almost cheeky. She was holding the glass jar he'd found the memory in. "Do you have anything you want to tell yourself?"

He scowled at her, though there was no heat in the expression. The memory ended there, so he must not have had anything to say.

"That didn't explain a bloody thing," Severus informed the Pensieve. The memory had ended abruptly, and he'd found himself standing in his dining room again. There were all the things other-Granger had put in her bag, and there was his handwriting on the potion bottle.

Severus watched the memory a dozen more times. He noticed something different each time: The numbers in Granger's handwriting covering the exposed pages of an overlarge workbook, arithmancy equations. The sure way they worked together, as though they'd been at it for a lifetime. The perfectly alphabetized store room. The low stool at the corner desk with a well-padded cushion. His own handwriting across ledgers and invoices on the desk itself. A pair of reading glasses in old-Severus's breast pocket. The house elf (wearing a clean green pillow case-toga) that appearing for a split second at the end of the memory, opening the door to the lab with worry in its bulbous brown eyes. The way the hundreds of vials in the room were arranged first by medium (crystal with crystal, glass with glass, lead with lead, etc.) and then by size.

* * *

Severus paced. Sometimes, it helped him think, but not this time. He paced and his mind continued to be blank, completely void of any useful idea. Eventually, he stopped pacing and made himself a sandwich. The food didn't help him think.

He watched the memory again, then again. He memorized the arithmancy on the workbook and wrote it out again, trying to balance the equations or find some reasoning behind them. (Nothing came of it.) He did the same with the names on the ledgers and invoices, though no amount of wracking his brains or his books showed results.

And then, just over twenty-four hours after the witch had vanished from his sitting room, Hermione Granger, aged thirteen, knocked on his front door.


	3. Chapter 3 (July 1993)

"You're so young," she said, standing there on his doorstep. She looked young and small compared to the witch he'd almost become familiar with from viewing the memory so many times.

"Miss Granger," he said, raising an eyebrow at her absurd salutation.

"Master Snape," she replied, her tone sardonic, amused. It made him scowl.

" _What_ are you doing here, Miss Granger?" he asked. She looked at him, eyes assessing. It was a strange look on such a young person. Stranger still because that was all he saw in her—she was utterly still, looking him over—usually she broadcast her every thought across her face and couldn't hold back on the questions.

"It didn't work," she said. "You don't remember."

"If you do not answer my question," he said, stepping closer so that he would loom over her," I will remove fifty points from Gryffindor the moment we are back at Hogwarts."

Granger laughed. She actually laughed.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, still grinning, holding a hand up. "It's just so absurd! House points."

He raised an eyebrow, utterly unsure what to say.

"May I please come in? I know you don't have much in the way of neighbors, but somebody will eventually notice there's a thirteen year-old standing on your doorstep and think it's odd."

"It _is_ odd," he said. "Quite odd."

"Please, sir?"

"Miss Granger. Why are you here?"

"Because we lost," she said. "We _will_ lose."

"Lose _what_?"

"The war."

He let her in, fighting off a wave of nausea so fierce he thought he might pass out.

He didn't realize they'd moved, but when he looked up he was sitting at the dining room table and she was pouring him tea. She poured it the way he liked it—honey first, then the tea, and then the smallest bit of milk. How in the world could she know that?

"Begin at the beginning," he told her, resisting the urge to Summon his bottle of whiskey and add it to his tea. He needed a clear head, not to mention drinking in front of a student was bad form.

"Did you not explain it?" she asked, gesturing to the Penseive and the empty memory bottle with his handwriting on the label.

"Obviously not."

"May I view the memory?"

"Not until you _explain_ ," he said.

Granger sighed, then surprised him by standing up and fetching the whiskey. She added just a touch to his tea, then gave him a look that clearly said "calm down."

"We lost the war," she said again. "We _will lose_ the war."

"You've said that."

She pursed her lips and glared at him. She looked alarmingly like a miniature Minerva McGonagall when she did it.

"Politically, it began with the Registration Act of 1998," she said. He raised an eyebrow since it was, in fact, 1993, but she was undaunted. "All Muggleborns, werewolves, and half-breeds of all varieties were forced to register or be sent to Azkaban prison. Then came the Purification Act of 2002, in which all who had registered as well as all who had been in Azkaban for not registering were killed. Humanely, of course. A painless potion."

"It is 1993," he said, but she ignored him.

"I was spared. I'm the brightest witch of my age, despite my Muggle heritage. I was also Harry Potter's friend, so keeping me around was… nostalgic."

"Was?"

"Harry died in the year 2000."

Severus sipped his tea.

"May I view the memory now?"

He hesitated, and then he nodded. He added more whiskey to his tea and drank it while he waited.

"You died," she said. He raised his eyebrows. "I wonder if that's the memory you intended to send, of if you flinched. You died not five minutes later. I barely made it out."

"You are—"

"A paradox."

"Come again?"

She smirked.


	4. Chapter 4 (November 1993)

"I think the strangest bit of all is the mentality," Granger said. She'd dropped by his office after class. She had a Time Turner, so she wouldn't be missed. The first few times she'd done it, he'd put up a fight, but now he'd given up.

"The mentality?" Severus set aside the marking he'd been trying to finish before dinner to watch her pace as she talked. She tended to talk to him as though they were already halfway through a conversation. It was maddening, but he was beginning to enjoy it. It had been a very long time since he'd had a friend, the sort of acquaintance who thought about things to tell him the next time she saw him.

"Yes," she said. (The 'keep up, _Professor_ ,' was implied.) "I can't remember every day of my life, of course, but I remember the general shape of it, the major events. My mind— _mentally_ —I've sixty-odd years of life. I remember what a wreck I was when I took my N.E.W.T.s and the horror as we slowly lost the war. But _now_ —physically—I've just turned fourteen."

"I see," he said, and he wasn't entirely lying.

"I had my very first period again over the summer. I can remember what it feels like to be pregnant, but this version of my body had never even shed a uterine lining."

"You— _what_?" he spluttered, trying not to blush. "Why would you say that to me?"

"Sorry," she said, not sounding apologetic in the least. "You're the only person I've talked to, really, in forty years or so. I'm used to telling you everything."

"You've got Potter and Weasley for that."

"You think I should go and tell two third-year boys their third-year friend who's a girl gets a monthly visit from Aunt Floe?"

"Granger…"

"'Course it's not really monthly just yet. My hormones were all over the place until I was sixteen or so." She smirked. "Gods, I was a _mess_ when I was fifteen. Just you wait."

"Merlin, girl, stop talking."

She stopped talking and stood there smirking at him instead. He was at his desk and she stood in the middle of his office, her hands clasped behind her, essentially at parade rest. A gangly prepubescent girl in knee socks. Bushy hair, teeth suspiciously smaller than they had been when he'd seen her over the summer.

Or could she be considered prepubescent if she was menstruating? She _looked_ prepubescent.

"Do you have anything useful to tell me?" he asked her, setting the quill on its little stand so that he didn't drip ink all over the essay he'd been trying to mark.

"No, sir," she said. She'd stopped smirking, but continued to stand there in the middle of his office looking alarmingly pleased with herself. "Honestly, I just wanted to talk to somebody who knows I'm not really fourteen."

"You _are_ really fourteen," he said, because she was. The paradox of her was that she seemed to remember everything that had happened in the life of the other Granger.

"You know what I mean."

She smirked again, and he returned his attention to the essay in front of him. He picked up his quill and scratched out a line that was so badly written it almost made him request the student rewrite the whole essay. (The only thing that kept him from doing just that was the prospect of marking the second attempt.)

"You had a child?" he asked, the thought finally catching up with him. He looked up from his marking in time to see her face shutter and her eyes go blank.

"No, sir," she said.

"But you said—"

"I _was_ pregnant, yes. But I never had children."

He blinked, trying to puzzle out the cryptic statement. His first impulse was that she'd miscarried or that the baby had died, but the blankness in her eyes wasn't the sort of blankness that hid the pain of loss. He couldn't decipher _what_ the blankness was hiding.

And then she was gone, slipping out of his office as quietly and abruptly as she'd entered. If it hadn't been for the soft thumping of the door, he might've assumed she'd used her Time Turner to make her escape.


	5. Chapter 5 (August 1995)

Granger was in his office when he returned from the Riddle graveyard. He Flooed back to his office and was immediately sick all over the rug, and she was the one who pulled his hair back out of the way and Vanished the mess.

"You—" he started, but then choked on bile. She made gentle shushing noises and tied his hair back.

"I know," she murmured. Her voice was quiet and soothing. She pressed her fingers into the muscle on either side of his backbone where his neck met his shoulders, exactly as his mam had done to soothe him when he was a boy. "Quiet now. I know."

"You know?" he repeated awhile later when he'd vomited and dry-heaved himself out. She'd held him through the whole thing, rubbing her fingers into the muscle of his neck and keeping his hair out of the mess. "You knew?"

"Yes. I knew."

"You didn't warn anyone. You didn't warn me."

"You told me not to."

"I did no such thing."

"Before. It was your plan, your potion that sent me here. Or," she corrected herself with a dark chuckle, "my memory."

"There was a plan?"

"Yes. I drank the potion too quickly, though; I was in a hurry."

"Because I died."

"You were killed, yes."

"Killed?"

"We were discovered. The house elf betrayed us."

"House elf?"

"It was in the memory you sent yourself," she said. "Peaking in the door."

"I remember it."

"It served you but you weren't its master," she said. She'd let him go and was preparing tea for him. "We knew it was a matter of time before it realized what was going on, especially after you banned it from the laboratory. We didn't expect it to tell the Seven directly."

"The Seven?"

Granger sighed. She'd just poured a healthy drop into his teacup, and she knocked a gulp back then coughed.

"Jesus, I think that's the first alcohol I've had this time around," she said, her voice rough from the drink. He almost laughed, but he was too wrung-out.

"Well, try it again, Granger. Maybe it'll be smoother." He scowled at her, daring her to have another drink. He was surprised when she did.

She wasn't afraid of him, if she ever had been. It was strange, indeed.

"I was pregnant seven times," she said, not looking at him. She fixed herself a cup of tea, focusing on the movements of her hands too closely. "I played surrogate to Tom Riddle's Seven."

"His…"

"Do you know what cloning is? It's a Muggle—"

"Yes."

"He wanted a dynasty, but he didn't want anybody else to head it. He also didn't want anybody to mistake his heirs as himself; he had you make a potion that cloned his DNA, and I carried little female Voldemorts."

He flinched when the Dark Mark burned at the name, but he didn't chastise her. She finally looked him in the eye.

"I sat at his feet, swelling up with those abominations." She scowled, her hands held out to show the extent of pregnancy.

It seemed absurd, this tiny slip of a barely-teenager with the mantle of womanly knowledge heavy behind her eyes. She looked both very young and very old.

"I tried to die," she admitted quietly. "You wouldn't let me."

"I'm sorry," he said, because that seemed like the right thing to say.

"That's the strange part about all this," she said, rubbing her belly roughly once before she added whiskey to her tea and sipped it. "All of it isn't so raw. I remember it, I feel it, but… I have hope again."

"I don't," he croaked, rubbing the Mark the way she'd rubbed her belly. He thought he might vomit again.

"Do you know how long it takes to carry seven daughters to term? I was in labor for _hours_ each time. The first time took almost a full day." She looked up at him. "It hurt."

He blinked, watching her posture change. She wasn't the prim student, sitting just right with her shoulders back and her head up. She bowed a bit, shoulders hunched, eyes down as she told it.

"Mothers always say it's worth it, the pain. They love their children, so it is worth it." She looked up at him, eyes hard. "They weren't my children. I carried them and I birthed them, but they weren't mine. There was none of _me_ in them," she snarled. "And, in the end, they killed you."

"And you say you have hope again?" he asked. She didn't sound like she had hope.

"You are still alive."

A horrible thought crept into his head. He hadn't thought of it before. It hadn't occurred to him when he'd seen the memory in the Pensieve, mostly because his elder self was so… elderly.

"Granger… were you—did we…?"

"Lovers?" she asked, almost smiling. She had that womanly whatsit behind her eyes again. It was somewhere between wisdom and bitterness, with a healthy dose of amusement over the top. She made him uncomfortable the way Minerva McGonagall made him uncomfortable sometimes.

"Well…"

"No." She poured them each a fresh cup of tea. He hadn't realized they'd finished what was in front of them.

"I see."

"We were rather busy, Professor," she said, her eyes dancing. "We were the only ones left to undermine the enemy."

"The only ones?"

"Hagrid made to it France. And Bill and Fleur and their children." She frowned, sipped her tea. "I sat at his feet and watched everybody else die. It took years, but by the time I was gifted to you we were on our own."

"I wish you would tell me what happened."

"I have told you."

He frowned, but it probably didn't count for much because he was watching her over the rim of his teacup and she couldn't see his mouth.

"You did not tell me about tonight."

"As I said, you said not to. You weren't sure you'd be able to put yourself through it if you had the choice."

He added more whiskey to his tea. She was right.

* * *

She was there when he returned from meeting with Dumbledore. She sat there, staring into the fire, the dregs of her tea cold in the cup between her hands.

"You did kiss me once," she said.

"Oh?" One of his eyebrows rose of its own accord.

"I woke you to swear I wouldn't try to kill myself again." She set her teacup on the side table and stood to leave. "I told you I'd decided to live and you kissed me."

She left, slipping out the door behind him. He wasn't sure why the encounter made his heart pound in his chest.


	6. Chapter 6 (August 1995)

He hadn't planned to tell Dumbledore, but the summer had devolved rather quickly. The Death Eaters had gathered; the Dark Lord had begun to make plans. Severus had made the mistake of bringing her up.

Granger glared at him. The headmaster had had her join them in the library after dinner. The rest had separated for the night, some returning to their own homes while others went about their chores or homework at Grimmauld Place. He stood behind the sofa where Dumbledore sat and stared right back at her.

"The fewer people who know what I remember, the less of an impact it will have on the events as they unfold. The less impact there is on the events, the more I will know what to expect. The more I know to expect, the more I can take small actions that create preferable changes."

"You have not done anything as of yet," Dumbledore said.

"I have, actually. I told Professor Snape what could happen."

"And that created a preferable change?"

"Yes."

Severus raised an eyebrow, wondering just what change she was referring to.

"Miss Granger," Dumbledore said slowly, his voice utterly serious, "I am going to ask you to tell us the whole of it. Everything. It's important."

Surprisingly, Granger leveled an annoyed look at the headmaster. Severus had never seen anybody do that outside the Wizengamot.

"No, sir."

"No?" Dumbledore sounded honestly surprised.

"No," she repeated.

"Miss Granger—"

"Headmaster. With all due respect, we did this your way the first time around and it didn't work."

"Tell him the full of it, Miss Granger," Severus instructed. She pinned him with a look. He had to resist the urge to shrug. "At this point, it can only help."

He was surprised when she did as he said. She looked at him instead of the headmaster as she spoke, but she did speak.

"There was a coup at the Ministry while I was taking my N.E.W.T.s. That was when Ron and Professor McGonagall were killed—she'd escorted him and a few others to the Ministry to retake their Apparation tests. The papers never reported how bloody the takeover was, of course. It was hardly acknowledged.

"My parents were killed the next morning. Most of the parents of well-known Muggleborns were." She didn't so much as blink when she said it. "I stayed at Grimmauld Place with Harry. I'd planned to work at the Ministry, and he'd planned to start training as an Auror, but no matter that nothing had changed officially it would've been a bad idea to set foot there, let alone work there.

"Then came the Registration Act. All Muggleborns and any other sort of half-breed had to register or be sent to Azkaban. I didn't register. Remus did. Hagrid left the country.

"It was alright until the Purification Act a few years later; we were surviving okay, and there were times where it almost seemed like we could turn the tide of it. Then the Purification Act made it legal and necessary for them to kill everybody who'd registered. And everybody who hadn't, of course.

"We'd found and destroyed most of the Horcruxes by then. The diary, the Gaunt ring, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, the diadem of Ravenclaw, the snake Nagini. There was just Harry left. You'd told him that the Dark Lord had to be the one to do it before you died," she said, glancing down at Dumbledore before her eyes returned to Severus to continue the story. "So, on the first night of the Culling, he walked to the gate of Malfoy Manor and rang the bell.

"They didn't kill him outright." Her eyes were dead, almost like they had been when she'd told him about the Seven. His mind was racing, full of Horcruxes ( _plural_ ), but he couldn't look away from her. "I was there when it finally happened, almost a full year later. It was the day the Dark Lord decided to keep me alive. Harry had been tethered to one of the walls. I thought he was dead. I thought they'd spelled his body and chained it in place, but when the Dark Lord began telling his court his plan for me, Harry started shouting. And the Dark Lord killed him."

"And his plan for you," Severus prompted her when she lapsed into silence.

"I was surrogate to the Seven. Female, but otherwise genetically identical to Tom Riddle. I was gifted to Professor Snape for my steady hands and my decent N.E.W.T. score in Potions after that, and mostly left alone. We did what we could to get people out, but there's no telling if we were successful—we sent them to Beauxbaton's, since Hagrid married Madame Maxime. There was no way for them to get word back to us, or probably even know who was sending the refugees.

"And then the Seven killed the Dark Lord. The eldest of them was almost thirty years old. He'd raised them to be ruthless and cunning; he never expected them to have minds of their own, but of course they did. I believe it was when he'd begun talking of breeding them with favored Purebloods that they began plotting against him.

"There's no knowing, now. They killed him. The world was worse with seven young witches trying to run it, some of the Dark Lord's followers in their pockets, some afraid of them, some abandoning them. They closed the borders and began killing Muggles.

"Professor Snape developed a potion with Time Turner dust in the base. The arithmancy indicated it would create a paradox, the drinker sent back along their own timeline with memories of a future that would not exist because their very existence in their past would _change_ the future. We decided I would drink it."

She looked at him for a long moment in silence. He guessed she was thinking of the reasons why he hadn't decided to drink it himself, why it had to be her. He supposed there were too many mistakes he'd like to fix, and too many experiences necessary to the war that he'd rather avoid. If he were honest with himself, he'd probably have liked to drink enough of the potion to send him back to Lily and make things right, or even just to send him back to before he'd delivered the fateful prophecy.

She was the right choice.

"I was in a hurry. The Seven arrived moments after we'd completed the potion. Professor Snape stalled them while I grabbed my bag—since I didn't know how long I would remain in my past, or just where I would arrive, if I'd be among allies—and drank the potion. I drank the goblet-full instead of a proper dose, as I was in a hurry.

"He was killed. I blacked out. When I woke, I was in a Muggle hospital in Manchester. They'd found me in the street." She shrugged. "I made my way to his house, sat down to explain, and that was as long as the paradox physically remained. I, myself, aged thirteen, woke at what must have been the same moment the other-me vanished, and I could remember everything."

She stopped speaking, and Severus nodded. She nodded back, then turned her eyes to Dumbledore. They stared at each other, not saying anything, and then Granger stood and left the room.

" _Horcruxes_ , Albus?"

* * *

Granger was waiting for him in the room he kept at Grimmauld Place when he finished with the headmaster. The room he'd warded. The room he hadn't even _felt_ her enter.

"You shouldn't be in here," he said, trying not to give away how anxious it made him that she'd breached his wards.

"I didn't expect to be able to be," she said casually. She was sitting at the little desk in the corner, relaxed. She'd simply been waiting. She didn't seem to have touched anything; not even his books. "I suppose that carried over as well. Like being able to see the secrets of your house, I can enter the places you permitted me to before."

"I permitted you in my bedroom?" he asked through gritted teeth. She smiled. It was a strange, calm smile. The way the old woman knowledge in her eyes had been strange when she talked of the children that weren't hers. The Seven.

"You gave me free access to your house and rooms, your bedroom included." She looked very far away. "You were getting to be a very old man, Professor Snape. You joked, on occasion, that you didn't want that twat of a house elf to be the one to find your body."

"Language."

"I was quoting _you_."

He frowned at her but didn't say anything. She just sat there, not moving, still looking far away with some memory that she shouldn't have had.

"Why are you here, Granger?" He sat on the foot of his bed and asked her, mockingly, "Are you angry with me for telling Dumbledore?"

"Honestly," she said, "I'm surprised you didn't tell him sooner. You were always very loyal."

"Right," he said, still mocking. It took all he had not to snort. "Loyal."

"Loyal to Lily. Loyal to Dumbledore."

"I'm a traitor to the Dark Lord."

"He hardly deserved your loyalty."

"And I may be loyal to Dumbledore, but only because—"

"Yes, and that's the point with the Death Eaters, too. You could say your loyalty to Lily supersedes the promises you made the Death Eaters."

"I don't need _you_ to rationalize my loyalties, Granger." He didn't like that she knew about Lily. She hadn't brought that up before, and yet it felt strangely natural to talk to her about it. That was strange, too.

"You're right. You do it well enough yourself." Her tone wasn't cutting, but it cut anyway.

"Would you like me to apologize, is that it?"

She smiled at him, and again it was strange. "I'm not angry at you. Dumbledore was always going to find out somehow. Really, it's better it came from you instead of his stumbling upon it on his own. Then he would've been angry at the both of us."

"He isn't angry with you."

"He is. He just knows better than to show it—wouldn't want to alienate such a ripe source of information."

"He isn't like that."

"Like what? Conniving? Plotting?" She sat back and crossed her legs at the knee, looking like a little queen in his desk chair. She looked down her nose at him, and he didn't like it. "He's running this war, Professor. He's the Head Mugwump, he's the headmaster, and he leads the Order. It's all him."

"And you think we need to change that." It wasn't a question, but she nodded at him anyways.


	7. Chapter 7 (September 1995)

He woke with an unusual jolt; it took him a few breaths to realize it was a dream.

He was in a bed. He was aware that it was his own bed, though he had no memory of sleeping in it before. He was warm and comfortable. There was a woman in bed next to him.

He ached like he didn't when he was awake. His knees felt creaky, and his hands were swollen at the knuckles. Nothing _hurt_ , exactly, but he ached. The one good thing was the warmth in the bed next to him. A woman.

"In another life, Severus. Yeah?" It was Hermione Granger next to him. Older, grown up. Her body was pressed against his is a very pleasant way, and she was most definitely grown up.

"Hm?" He turned to look at her in the dark, seeing the glint of her eyes. And then he woke up.

First, overwhelming loneliness. It was gone almost as soon as he'd registered it. Then annoyance, because that was a dream that had always featured Lily. It had felt different this time, though; it had felt more real, like a memory instead of an entirely fabricated scenario. The bed had been strange that time, too—before it had always been his bed at Spinner's End.

Severus stood and stalked to the bathroom for a shower. Usually, he woke from that dream in a _state_ that either needed a very cold shower or a very long shower. This morning, it was different (which was a relief, considering he'd dreamt a _student_ ); he just felt rested.

* * *

"Granger," he said, holding her back at the end of class. She looked ridiculously young. She was sixteen now. She'd take her O.W.L.s at the end of the school year. It would be cheating, of course; she'd already studied for and taken her O.W.L.s _and_ her N.E.W.T.s, which was an unfair advantage.

She seemed to anticipate his mood, like she always did now. She waited until the class had gone, and then smiled at him.

Cheeky.


	8. Chapter 8 (June 1996)

The hospital wing was still as death. The thought of it haunted him, and he couldn't look away from the rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin blanket.

She'd woken once a few hours ago—after Poppy had finished checking her one last time but before the mediwitch had gone to bed—and told him that he needed a shave. He hadn't been able to think of something to say to that before she'd drifted off to sleep again.

He still had her blood on his hands. He was bloody up to his elbows. Deep crimson, stark against the paleness of his skin. It was beginning to dry and flake; if there had been light, he would've been able to see it going brown. He wanted to wash his hands, he wanted the blood out from beneath his fingernails, but he didn't want to leave her bedside. Just in case.

He wanted to be there when she woke up properly so that he could yell at her.

* * *

He woke to find her crouched at his feet. He blinked. She had hold of his hands and was using his own wand to siphon her blood off his skin. He couldn't decide which was the bigger offense—touching him or using his wand.

"Granger," he said. He'd meant to growl it at her, to scowl, but she'd moved just right and he'd caught a glimpse of the barely sealed wound that ended just below her collar bone, and her name came out a whisper.

"I owe you my life, Professor," she said, not looking up from her work with his hands. She'd finished with his right hand and moved onto his left.

"You knew it was going to happen."

"Yes."

"You went anyway."

"As I've said before," she said, " better the devil you know."

"You could've died."

She looked up at him, and again there was that disconcerting weight behind her eyes. This time it wasn't womanly knowledge or an old woman's amusement, it was a soldier's experience of war. It was a tired warrior soul that had seen more than his ever had.

"You promised me you would stop trying to die," he said. It was strange how the thought of it made his heart race and ache at the same time. He'd come to depend on this odd paradoxical witch.

"I promised a different Severus Snape that I'd stop trying to die," she corrected him. She lifted his hand up to catch what little moonlight came in through the window, inspecting his nail beds. She gently touched his wand's tip to his index finger and he felt the magic tickle along his cuticle. Then she handed his wand back to him, apparently satisfied that his hands were clean.

"Granger," he said, this time managing a bit of proper menacing. As usual, it didn't bother her; she didn't react.

"In a month, it will only be a scar," she told him. She stood up, her movements slow and careful, and leaned just forward enough so that she could kiss his forehead. "I am quite used to scars, Professor."

"You didn't have any scars before now."

"None that the world could see," she said. Her tone was still light. He wondered if Poppy had given her something for the pain or something to help her sleep that had made her a bit lackadaisical.

He watched her get back onto the cot. She was so young, so small, but her movements were those of an old woman. She was careful not to jostle herself, even easing the light blanket up her legs so that it didn't touch her torso. There were bandages across the worst of it on her chest, and her nightgown covering those, but she fussed like adding even that negligible weight against her skin would be too much.

"You will be fine," he told her. She smiled at him like she knew he was saying it to reassure himself more than her, and he frowned because she was probably right.

"Good as new by the end of term."

"And ready for your next adventure?" he asked, sarcastic.

"Only with permission," she quipped.

"You do not have it," he said. "No more adventuring."

"I didn't say I needed _your_ permission," she said, smirking at him.

"Cheeky."

He left feeling much lighter. He was relieved. And then he was annoyed, because she'd done it on purpose. She'd been sore and ill, and she'd sat there chivvying him into a better mood about it.


	9. Chapter 9 (June, August 1996)

Before breakfast the morning the students were due to board the Express and go back to their families, Granger was waiting for him in his office. She sat in his chair, reading.

"How long have you been here?" It wasn't even worthwhile to get mad about her breaches into his personal space anymore.

"Not long."

"And _why_ are you reading in my office so early? Don't you want a lie-in before you spend the day on the train with your peers?"

She leveled him a look over the top of her book before she marked her page and set it aside.

"I wasn't going to tell you anything, but I've decided you'd be absolutely furious if I didn't. So I'm here to tell you something."

He looked at her, watching, wishing she had a tell when she was like this. It was uncanny in class, watching her behave like she should, biting her lip like a nervous teenager and arguing with her friends. It was just as uncanny to see her like this, though; still and thoughtful, mysterious in her blankness.

"Tell me, then."

"The headmaster is going to do something very stupid this summer. He's going to get himself cursed. It's going to kill him. Slowly. So slowly that he'll ask you to kill him before this time next year. And then there will be a coup at the Ministry before they can fill the gap left by Dumbledore's passing. And that will be the beginning of the end," she said.

"You don't sugar-coat things, do you?" he said, rhetorical, sitting down on the edge of one of the guest chairs. She rolled her eyes in response, moving to sit on the edge of the desk closest to him.

"Oh, Professor. It's going to be _horrible_ ," she said, voice whiny, pretending to wring her hands while she looked down at him with big cow-eyes.

"Enough."

"I was planning to destroy the object that curses him before it can curse him. It will change things in a big way. I wasn't going to tell you."

"Why _are_ you telling me?"

"The alternative scenario I could see working in favor of winning the war would be to let him be cursed, but not to step in and stop the curse from killing him immediately."

"How would _that_ be helpful?"

"You wouldn't be wanted as his murderer next summer, for one. It would keep you with the Order."

Every detail she gave him made it clearer just why, exactly, his elder self had opted to send her back instead of making the trip himself. If he had all these horrible things in his past, compounding on top of the things that had already happened… He wouldn't have been able to stick to a plan, to let things happen when they had to.

* * *

She sent him a letter, and he met her at an anonymous coffee shop on an anonymous corner in Manchester in the middle of August. She was there in the corner of the shop, reading a novel and drinking tea. She didn't look her age, though he wasn't sure exactly how to quantify her age in the first place.

He brought his coffee to her table and glared at her until she set her book aside to smirk at him.

"I _knew_ you owned jeans."

"Shut up, Granger. Why am I here?"

"Today was the day you made an Unbreakable Vow to Nacissa Malfoy with her sister as your Binder."

"I beg your pardon?"

"In approximately twenty minutes, the Black sisters will be at your doorstep. The Vow cements you in your position with the Death Eaters, but it puts you in a horrible position otherwise. The Vow almost kills you at least twice. You didn't like to talk about it."

"I made an Unbreakable Vow?"

"Yes. To protect Draco Malfoy. To kill Dumbledore if he failed to do it himself."

"Draco's been asked to kill the headmaster?"

"I don't know. The headmaster isn't dying. I _did_ intervene on that. He wasn't happy with me."

"I heard about it. He summoned me to the school to yell at me. Apparently, you are my responsibility."

"I fear we are destined for that connection," she said, humor dancing in her eyes. "At least this time it's just the headmaster taking it out on you. The last time, you had to see to my food and housing as well as my physical well-being."

"Granger," he said, sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose. He didn't like the thought of that— _destined_ for something as a 'we' with Hermione Granger. It was too… something. Too much.

"I don't know if they're going to go to your house today or not, but I decided to play it safe."

"So you invited me out for coffee?"

"You're welcome."

* * *

He'd been having dreams like mad. Memory dreams. He'd decided they must be memories from that other time. The one where he'd died. The one where Granger had suffered so badly.

Some of them were charming. Hours spent with Granger reading, discussing, planning. The potions lab was glorious, and it had been the only bright spot in his life before they'd given him Granger.

Some was less charming. He was mostly left alone to his potions and poisons, but every once and again he was expected at a revel. He had a very vivid memory of Granger sitting on the step in a sack of a dress, hugely swollen with pregnancy and looking miserable. He had an equally vivid memory of Draco Malfoy, eyes great bruises and hair as greasy as Severus's ever was, screaming at him about how Bellatrix's death meant Severus didn't have to save him anymore.

He wanted to talk to Granger about the dreams. He didn't think that she'd appreciate his remembering. But he wanted to talk to her about the memories of her in his bed. They'd slept in the same bed for years. She'd been too traumatized and then he'd been too old for there to be anything physical, but the comfort in each others' company had been there.

He'd asked her if they'd been lovers, and she'd told him no. He hadn't asked if they'd been in love.


	10. Chapter 10 (August 1996)

He usually avoided Diagon Alley like the plague. Hogsmeade was more convenient, and they were used to seeing him there. Down Diagon Alley, people stared. He was The Professor. Especially this close to term time; students and their families were bustling about picking up supplies, and he stuck out like a sore thumb.

His new cloak was in at Madam Malkin's, though. And the Hogsmeade apothecary hadn't had enough armadillo bile to fill the school's order, so he had to see about picking up the rest of it. And he'd been avoiding lingering at home since Granger had warned him that the Black sisters would show up and try to get him to make a Vow (even if Wormtail wasn't lingering about anymore).

Ollivander's was an empty front, and it made his skin crawl. It was usually the busiest shop this time of year, but Garrick Ollivander was in the dungeon at Malfoy Manor. Or perhaps he was dead by now; it had been more than a week. Fortescue's was a shell, too, but Severus knew that hadn't been the Dark Lord; his hypothesis was that Florian had seen the way the wind was blowing and done a rather spectacular bunk.

The only cheerful spot on the street was the Weasley twins' shop, and it spelled all sorts of horror for the upcoming school year. He stood out front for a moment, scowling. He made a mental note of the students he saw bustling about. He had to make a deliberate effort not to smile when he saw them notice him, saw them begin to scurry around like ants in hopeless attempts not to be noticed.

It became easier to scowl when he saw _her_. Not just her. She was with her friends. She looked younger than she had in the coffee shop. She'd looked mature in the coffee shop; she didn't look mature standing surrounded by colorful joke products, framed by the latticed window.

She kissed Fred Weasley on the cheek before she left the shop, and it made Weasley blush.

Severus walked away before she saw him, decidedly not analyzing the way he felt about the non-encounter. He Flooed from the Leaky Cauldron to the Three Broomsticks, and stopped dead when he looked up from cleaning the soot off his robes.


	11. Chapter 11 (August 1996)

Severus eased into wakefulness. Usually, he emerged from sleep instantaneously aware of his surroundings, with a list of tasks for the day ready in his head. Slowly coming to consciousness, and without a thought in his head, was an alarming way to wake up.

He opened his eyes. The room was unfamiliar. In fact, not only was it unfamiliar, it was nonsensical. The walls were a creamy yellow, and there were white, lacy curtains on the window. There was a stuffed terrier on the window seat's plush blue cushion. There was a low dresser with a towel on top of it and nappies arranged in a stack. The floor was dark wood, and there was a rag rug that looked handmade covering it.

Severus sat up, planting his feet on the floor and rubbing his thighs. Every muscle in his body was sore. It was a good kind of sore, though; it felt good to move.

As he sat there, he looked around the nursery and wondered, first, who it belonged to, and second, why he was in it. It was a new, cheerful sort of room. The paint was fresh, the colors all coordinated. It was a room that had not been lived in yet. He wondered if the child due to occupy it had been born yet, or if it was a sad story.

When his legs felt suitably awake, Severus stood. There were various aches and pains, and he seemed to be a patchwork of bandages underneath the pajamas, but he felt well. None of the bandages were soaked through with blood, at least.

He opened the curtains and was surprised to get a face-full of sunshine. It was late afternoon, and the sun was high and bright. He was on the third floor and had a good view of the street below. Hogsmeade. The little neighborhood on the end farthest from the train station.

When he went to run a hand through his hair, he was started to realize he had none. There was the stubble of new growth, but nothing else. He rubbed his head cautiously. He couldn't remember a time when he didn't have long, or long-ish, hair. It was part of him—black, greasy hair and a sneer. For a moment, he was furious. Somebody had _cut his hair_. Not only cut it, but shaved it all off. That was entirely too invasive.

Then he just felt tired.

Severus poked around the room a bit and found his wand next to the nappies on the dresser, and his dark green dressing gown hanging on a hook by the door. He wondered what it was doing in a nursery, then realized whoever was taking care of him, if they'd been able to get his pajamas, had probably been able to get his dressing gown, too. Wishing whoever it was had thought to get his slippers, he closed the curtains again, shutting out the daylight, and cautiously opened the nursery door.

Hermione Granger was sitting in an old rocking chair in the next room. She had her head back against the chair, eyes closed. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and she was pale. Even her hair, usually a wild mess of curls and frizz, looked flat and tired. She wore a long off-white nightgown and a fluffy lavender dressing gown. And she had a baby in her arms—or at least he assumed it was a baby; it was only logical to assume the baby-shaped bundle of blankets in her arms was a baby.

He frowned. Where the hell had she got a baby from? Where the hell were they?

He'd been in Diagon Alley. She'd made Fred Weasley blush and he'd headed for the Leaky to use the Floo since he'd bought ingredients that reacted badly to Apparation.

"How are you feeling?" Granger's soft voice interrupted his confused thoughts. He glared at her, still unable to recall how he had come to be injured, or why he was staying in a nursery (particularly considering there seemed to be a baby present that was meant to occupy the space).

"Confused," he admitted. Granger's expression did not change, she simply nodded and looked down at the child in her arms. Carefully, she stood and walked across the room and through the open door of what looked like a study. There were book shelves and a writing desk, as would be expected in a study, but there was also a cradle standing in the middle of the room. He supposed it had been moved so that he could occupy the nursery.

"That's good," Granger told him once she had closed the door on the sleeping baby. "The last time you woke up, you thought I was eleven and that we were in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts."

She led him to the kitchen and maneuvered him into a chair. He didn't know how she'd done it. It was like Healers, getting their patients to move and do as they wanted without asking or telling. He wondered if he'd blacked out.

Granger, still expressionless, neutral, waved her wand about, casting silent spells. He recognized the colorful, swirling mists as common diagnostic charms. If his memory served, and he hoped it did, the results were good. She performed the spells over all his bandages, and his shaved head, and seemed to get similar results. He watched her and waited for her to tell him what she had deduced from the spells. He had already admitted he was confused; he wasn't going to spell it out for her even more clearly by asking questions.

"Drink this," Granger said, handing him a small vial full of milky red fluid. "Then go take off your bandages and have a shower. Be sure you flush all the wounds thoroughly."

He did as she said. There was nothing to do but trust her, as far as he could tell. She'd yet to lead him wrong, anyway.

The potion tasted horrible, and he pegged it to be a particularly strong anti-inflammatory. It left a dry, chalky feeling in his mouth.

Once the bathroom door was locked behind him, he stripped out of dressing gown and pajamas, revealing many, many bandages. Several toes on his right foot were taped together; there was a large scab on his left calf; both of his knees bore the marks of tidy Muggle stitches, though the right knee also had a selection of small, new scars; all the veins in his left thigh stood out blue and bold, as if they had become varicose since he'd last looked at his leg; his abdomen was all splotchy bruises and healing scrapes; there was a burn on his right shoulder that was entirely new, pink skin mixed among the scabs; his left elbow didn't look damaged, but when he removed the tape that had been bracing it, he could feel the internal soreness; his right wrist and forearm were wrapped in an ugly knot of pale fresh scar tissue; and six fingers across both hands had been broken recently, he could feel it. Looking in the mirror, he saw that his nose was crooked from being broken, and his scalp was a mess of yellowish bruises. He wondered just what the hell had happened to him.

The shower was torture. It felt wonderful, the warm water pouring over his aches and pains, loosening up his muscles. But the burn on his shoulder felt as though it was on fire whenever the hot water touched it. His recently healed fingers ached after only a few moments of washing. His elbow locked up twice when he stretched it out to full extension without thinking. He did as he had been told, though. After he'd gone through his usual wash, carefully, he presented each open injury to the stream of water and counted to ten. He gave in after three on the burned shoulder, but otherwise he succeeded.

There were three more vials waiting for him when he got out of the shower, and he scowled at them. It meant that Granger had been in the room while he bathed, and he didn't like that one bit. He had begun to rehearse a scathing lecture for her—to be delivered at a harsh whisper so as not to wake the infant—but then he realized that somebody had to have put him in the pajamas and bandaged him up. His anger dissipated, replaced by embarrassment. He flushed red from bare scalp to pasty chest.

Once he finished being embarrassed, he looked for his pajamas and found them missing. There were clean underwear, and his long green dressing gown, but no pajamas. He thought about refusing to leave the bathroom until she brought him clothes, but decided against it. Granger surely had a reason. She had always been fairly logical, more so since she'd mixed with that other-Granger. He belted the dressing gown tight around him, stood up straight, and left the security of the pleasantly steamy bathroom.

"Now that you're awake," Granger said when she saw him, "I can heal the rest of your injuries. I wasn't able to while you were out; I had to wait for you to recover a bit on your own. There was awhile, there, where we weren't sure you'd make it. You were badly injured."

He refused to ask her what had happened. He had already told her he was confused.

"I'll need you to take off your dressing gown. Would you like me to start with the burn?" she asked, rolling up her sleeves. She had changed out of her nightgown while he showered. Now she wore Muggle blue jeans and a soft-looking long-sleeved shirt. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a tight tail at the back of her head, but curly tendrils had already broken free here and there.

"Yes," he replied. He wanted to ask her about her credentials (in all her stories of the past that hadn't happened, she hadn't once mentioned becoming a Healer, nor even studying up on it much), but he didn't.

"This will be uncomfortable," she said, producing her wand from a pocket, then handing him another vial. This one was larger, but only half full of what looked like water. "You can sip this to take the edge off as you need it. It's very diluted."

He pulled the dressing gown off and smelled the contents of the vial instead of looking at her. It was faint, but he detected the bitterness characteristic of an infusion of willow bark, and something else. He thought through a list of what it could be while he studiously ignored Granger. She had started at the top, moving around to stand behind him while she focused on his head. His skin was crawling, but he couldn't tell if it was a result of the magic or having her stand behind him with her wand drawn.

Granger worked her way from injury to injury. He took a sip of the potion when she started on the burn, and the whole world became very soft for a moment. Longer than a moment—when the edges of the door were no longer blurry, she was crouched at his feet, prodding his previously-broken toes with the tip of her wand. There was a series of cracks, like knuckles popping, and she stood up.

"Close your eyes." He did, and she tapped him, hard, on the nose with her wand. His eyes flew open, and he scowled. But he felt his broken nose shift back into position with another pop. His eyes watered. She handed him a tissue, and he wiped away the trickle of blood that had been making its way down his upper lip. "You'll need to sit down for me to do your thigh. And you might want another sip before I start. They got you with a nasty one."

He did as he was told, again. The world went soft and blurry, then snapped sharply into focus when she began her spellwork on the veins in his thigh. He took another sip to keep from screaming, then another to prevent himself from shoving her away. The pleasant blurriness didn't come back, but he didn't feel what she was doing to his leg so sharply. He could tell it was bad, though; the toes of his left foot were spasming in the most unnatural way. He looked away and gritted his teeth, focusing on the kitchen while he waited for it to be over.

The kitchen was very normal. Stove, lots of counter space, lots of cabinets. There was no refrigerator, but witches and wizards spelled their cabinets to preserve the food that needed it and they _were_ in Hogsmeade. The kitchen table, where he sat, was smallish and simple, with simple wooden chairs that matched it. Plain curtains covered the window over the sink. The floors were hardwood, like in the nursery. There were no rugs in this room, and no table cloth on the table. The walls were a muted green.

"You can go get dressed now," Granger told him, drawing his attention back. He looked down at his thigh, and just saw his thigh. It felt better, and there were no more lines of veins running across it. He took a deep breath and stood up.

His clothes were in the nursery, set out on the made bed. Black socks, black trousers, white shirt, gray waistcoat, black frock coat. Black dragonhide boots, recently polished. Hundreds of buttons, all told. He dressed quickly, using a spell he'd created years ago to do up the buttons. He wondered if he looked strange dressed in his usual clothes but without any hair, but there was no mirror in his room and he didn't want to conjure one. He didn't really want to know.

Granger had the table set out with a meal—he wondered if it was lunch or dinner—when he returned to the kitchen. She handed him an empty plate, then sat down in a chair and began filling her own. Chicken, potatoes, steamed carrots and broccoli, rolls the size of his fist still steaming from the oven. All of it looked wonderful, but he couldn't smell it. Even when he put a roll right up next to his face, he couldn't smell it. He looked up to see Granger laughing silently at him.

"Valerian, skullcap and willow bark," she said. "They are the three main ingredients in the infusion you were just drinking. When you smelled it—" she paused a moment to laugh again "—you temporarily relaxed your nose out of its sense of smell."

"You should have warned me," he said crossly, taking a bite out of the roll. It was delicious, but he couldn't taste it properly without his sense of smell.

"I didn't think you would smell it straight on,' she said, the laugh turning into a calculating look. "You're the one who taught me to waft the fumes of strange vials of things."

He scowled at her and didn't respond.


	12. Chapter 12 (August 1996)

They ate in silence. His sense of smell returned over the course of the meal, and by the time he took his last bite everything tasted right again. She cleared the table with a flick of her wand, then checked on the baby. He was just wondering if he would be left to sit in the kitchen by himself all day when she returned and put the kettle on.

"I suppose you're wondering what happened."

He looked at her, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't, he said, "Yes."

"What do you remember?"

"I remember Flooing from the Leaky to Rosmerta's."

"They were waiting for you at the Three Broomsticks. Death Eaters."

"I assume they weren't there for a chat," he said dryly, rubbing his bald head. There was a bit of downy stubble, like five o'clock shadow on his scalp.

"They'd decided you were a traitor. When you fought back, it convinced those that had been waiting and watching."

"So I'm out."

"You're out."

His first feeling was relief, but it was quickly followed by dread. If he was out, if he was no longer a spy, he was no longer useful. He would have to run. If he returned to Hogwarts, the children of Death Eaters would be used to kill him; if he didn't return to Hogwarts, there was no place that he could hide that the Dark Lord wouldn't track him to.

When Granger touched his head, he jolted so hard that he almost fell out of the chair. She put her other hand on his shoulder, though, and it was the work of a moment to have his head down between his knees. The panic faded with the urge to vomit.

"A section of Hogsmeade was torn apart by the fight that followed. Madam Rosmerta and others from the village came to your defense. All three of the Malfoys are in Azkaban, and a few others but mostly the Death Eaters escaped."

"Why aren't we at the castle? Why aren't we at Spinner's End?"

"They're watching for you at Spinner's End. I checked it—the wards are still intact," she said. He scowled down at his feet even though she wouldn't see it; he didn't like that she'd been able to check (let alone known that he would ask about) his house. He didn't like that he was thankful to her for checking on his house. "And we're trying to keep a low profile, so going to the castle would be a bad idea."

"Why a low profile? I'm a dead man anyway."

"No, you're not," she said, and the sharp conviction in her voice would've surprised him if she hadn't been making a habit of popping into his office to talk at him randomly over the last few years. "Voldemort is dead."

He waited for the burning pain that flared from his Mark whenever somebody used _his_ name. It didn't come.

Severus yanked back his sleeve, not believing that he hadn't noticed it. Yet there it was. His forearm. He hadn't noticed the unblemished skin before because his elbow had been in such awful condition that it distracted him, but there it was. The Dark Mark was gone.

"It's gone," he said. He hadn't meant to say it aloud. She rubbed a gentle circle on his back with the hand he hadn't realized she'd left there, and then moved away before he could shake her off. It was quite obnoxious that she knew him so well.

"With the Mark gone, it's all but impossible to prove beyond a doubt who was a Death Eater and who was not. The Ministry—Dumbledore as Head Mugwump, at least—wants you hidden away to serve as a reputable witness when they finally capture them. They want them in Azkaban legitimately. Permanently."

"How did the Dar— _Voldemort_ die? How did Potter…?"

"We were in Diagon Alley. Once the fight started in Hogsmeade, Death Eaters attacked there too. Voldemort cast the Killing Curse at Harry, but it knocked them both to the ground. We dragged Harry back into Fred and George's shop. He was out for not even five minutes, and then he fought his way past Mrs. Weasley back to the street. Voldemort had been surrounded by Death Eaters, but he did the same thing and they met out in front of Ollivander's."

"And?"

"And Harry did what he always does. He tried to disarm the guy who was trying to kill him."

"Ah, the great and powerful Harry Potter," Severus said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"He's still unconscious," Granger said, frowning at him.

"Again, the great and powerful. A Killing Curse on anybody else would have them dead."

"It didn't actually hit him," she said, exasperated.

"Whose baby is it?" he asked, changing the subject.

"The baby's name is Grace. She's Professor McGonagall's niece's daughter."

"And you are caring for her because…"

"Because she's an orphan. Her parents were in the pub when the Death Eaters attacked you, and when they came to your defense they were killed."

More debts he could never repay.


	13. Chapter 13 (August 1996)

"I suppose you saw this coming," he said. They'd slept; they were in the kitchen again and she was clearing away breakfast. He felt like he should have offered to help, but he was exhausted from the simple act of feeding himself.

"I didn't, actually." If there was bite to her tone, he ignored it.

"Oh?"

"I think this was a result of my keeping you out of the way when the Black sisters would have been trying to get you to make the Unbreakable Vow—"

"Thanks for that, then."

"Shut up, Professor." She threw him a look over her shoulder as the shelved the last of the dishes, but it was as amused as it was annoyed. He just shrugged.

"They turned on me because I didn't make the Vow and prove my loyalty beyond a doubt?"

"Possibly. Probably."

"As likely as anything else, I suppose," he said.

"The last time," she said, putting water in the kettle, "you made the Vow and you killed Dumbledore at the end of the school year. There were no witnesses, though. You were a fugitive—wanted for questioning—for a year. Things escalated and came to a head at the end of the next school year. I was taking my N.E.W.T.s at the Ministry, since by then my right to attend Hogwarts was in question. Being a Muggle-born."

"I see," he said. She put the kettle on.

"And you know the rest after that," she said. "This is all new."

They were quiet for a while. She made tea; something about the steady, practiced motions calmed Severus even though he wasn't the one performing them. He looked down at his hands to distract himself, uncomfortable. He looked at the fingers that had been broken. They looked perfectly whole.

"The problem we face is that it's a war now," Granger said. "And Scrimgeor was built for war. Real, vicious, all-out war. But Scrimgeor doesn't like the Order, and he definitely doesn't like Dumbleodre. He doesn't like secrets. He doesn't like the idea that he's never been asked to join the Order or even knew about anything being done against Voldemort.

"In short, he's blowing a lot of smoke and making things difficult. He has the same goals as we do, but he doesn't want us to be part of reaching them."

"What does that matter?" Severus asked.

"Because he's the Minister for Magic," Granger replied. "Because he's made Harry a powerless figurehead, painting an even bigger target on his back than ever and taking away most of his options. Because he wants the Order to disband. He doesn't want any help from 'amateurs.' Because he has the power to label all of us, should he ever come up with a list of names, war criminals and charge us as such. And he would do it in a heartbeat."

Severus frowned. "Tell me about what happened after Voldemort died." He almost stuttered over the name. He was so used to avoiding it. He rubbed the fabric over his left forearm as he spoke.

"Chaos, for the afternoon. At least for us." She poured him tea, then herself. It was perfect, as usual.

"Chaos," he echoed.

"The where, the who. Who was fighting, who was hiding, who was running. Trying to track down the Death Eaters before they went to ground. Trying to patch everybody up before they bled out. Trying to figure out who was on what side. Trying to make sure nobody fell through the cracks." The baby chose that moment to begin to cry. "Which is how I ended up with Grace."

"I find it odd that the Order would put a sixteen-year-old in charge of a baby."

"They put me in charge of _you_ ," she pointed out, returning with the baby.

"Why did they do that?"

"Who would think you'd be here with me? You were very severely cursed, you know."

"Dumbledore survived, then?" It was a guess, but based on the decision to stick an invalid who needed to be hidden with a schoolgirl who wasn't actually a schoolgirl…

"He did," she said, but she cooed it to the baby instead of speaking to him. Grace settled in her arms, staring up at her with big brown-green eyes. The McGonagall eyes, as it happened. "Yes, he did. He's a resilient old bastard like that."

"You seem remarkably comfortable with that baby."

"Well, not only did I get to play surrogate to the Seven, I was their wet nurse, too. I am quite comfortable with infants." She said it without any bitterness, but she was still cooing at Grace. She looked up at him (finally) and said, "It helps that she isn't a female incarnation of Tom Riddle. She has Professional McGonagall's eyes." She went back to cooing at the baby: "Yes you do. Uh-huh. They're very pretty, Grace. You have very pretty eyes."

"Would you stop that?"

"Stop what?"

" _Cooing_."

"I'm _talking_ to Grace." She smirked at him and then the baby. "It helps neurological development."

"So maybe you shouldn't have _talked_ to the Seven quite so much."

"If you keep talking like that, I won't be giving you your next dose of pain-killer."

"Tyrant."

"Very much so."


	14. Chapter 14 (August 1996)

"There were no grand words. No dramatic gestures," Granger told him. The baby was sleeping in the cradle in the other room. It was just Granger, staring at him over the top of a book. Her eyes were steely, rimmed dark from lack of sleep between taking care of him and taking care of the baby. Grace. "It was just over. They both fell. One of them got up."

"How can that be it?" he asked. "That can't be all. A man—a _creature_ —like the _Dark Lord_ doesn't just… DIE."

Granger glared at him, set her book aside, and went to soothe the baby.

"He died before," she said when she returned. The baby was quiet in her arms, and she rocked side to side to keep it calm. He hated how natural she was with the child. He hated how it made him feel to see her with the child (the child who'd had a Gryffindor for a mother and Slytherin for a father). "He. just. died. Even monsters bleed, Professor."

He glared at her because he didn't want to say anything else. No matter how surreal it was, the fact was the fact. Tom "Lord Voldemort" Riddle was dead.

"Now we deal with the after. And this time, there are no Seven for the after. There are the Death Eaters, who are scattered and broken and on the run. The government is still functioning, and I can assure you that Scrimgeor is incorruptible because last time they had to kill him." She glared at him, still rocking. "And this time, the Ministry knows it can rely on you. Witness testimony."

"Yes, and how did that come to be, hm? I don't _remember_ being attacked. I don't _remember_ doing or saying anything that could break my cover." He strode across the room so that he could loom over her properly. As usual, she didn't flinch; she just glared right back at him, her fingers never stopping their gentle movement on the baby to keep it calm. "I don't remember how I came to be here!"

"Are you accusing me of tampering with your mind?" she hissed at him, stepping closer.

"Should I be?" he asked, voice low. He wanted to step back but he didn't. Somehow, she'd turned the table on him. She'd stepped into his personal space and he wanted her out of it. The fire in her eyes was… daunting. That old soldier look was back, somehow intensified by the baby in her arms.

"Severus Snape, you know me better than that," she said, her tone as low and controlled as his had been. "Do not pretend that you don't."


	15. Chapter 15 (August 1996, and 1997)

She was gone the next day.

He woke, and the house was quiet. He dawdled in the nursery for a few minutes, wanting to put off facing her again—the night had ended with cold silences and slammed doors, the baby crying. (It was horribly, horribly reminiscent of his childhood.) He'd thought on it, though, and run a few tests on himself. Nobody had tampered with his memory; it was just that the concussion had been the least of his head injuries.

Severus had dressed, prepared himself to suffer through an apology, only to find Minerva downstairs feeding the baby.

"Where's Granger?" he snapped. The baby had adjusted to his voice somewhat and didn't fuss at the sound of him. Minerva jumped, though.

"St. Mungo's," she said, looking at him with curious eyes.

"St. Mungo's," he repeated, skeptical. Minerva glared at him. It seemed to put her world back to order, being cross with him, because she continued with a more normal tone.

"I'm sure you noticed she was quite ill. It was no mistake that she was here convalescing, too, you know." She set the bottle aside and moved the baby to her shoulder for burping. Grace squirmed a moment before settling in. "The headmaster told her to stay here with you and the baby until somebody from the Order could confirm that the hospital was secure. Fred Weasley brought her over last night after Kingsley reported all-clear."

* * *

She wasn't at any of the trials. At three of them, Dumbledore stood up and read a statement Granger had written in place of giving testimony in person.

He attempted to visit her in St. Mungo's, but she was gone. She wasn't at the phenomenally stupid Victory Gala that Scrimgeor insisted upon. Nor was she at the Order's post-gala meeting (in which they discussed the best tactics for keeping Scrimgeor from pinning them all as members of the Order, since it had become clear over the course of the "party" that the minister and his allies had used the function as a convenient gathering to try to sniff them out). She wasn't even on the list of returning students for the upcoming term at Hogwarts.

"She's ill, Severus. Really very sick," Minerva said when he finally confronted her about it.

"You said that before. Surely she should be getting better by now."

"She should be, yes. The healers don't seem to know how to help her." The look on her face told him that Dumbledore had told her not to tell him what was truly going on. He left her office and headed for the Headmaster's Tower without another word.

"Where did she go?" he asked as he opened the door.

"It wouldn't do to follow her, my boy," Dumbledore said, not bothering to pretend he didn't know who Severus was talking about. "She was in a bad way."

"I wasn't aware she was injured." It hurt to admit it, especially to Dumbledore. She'd come to him when she'd first shifted through time. _Him._ Not Dumbledore.

"She hadn't been injured. She was a very adept witch."

"But—"

"It was from before."

"How is that possible?"

"I do not know," the headmaster admitted, spreading his hands wide, palms up. His eyes didn't twinkle. He looked defeated. "She never explained it to me."

"You let her go off by herself when she was…whatever she is? Hurt?" Severus asked, looking for more information.

"As you have dealt with her, you know perfectly well that I didn't have much say in the matter. Miss Granger came to me and told me she had to go. Then she left."

"You should have stopped her."

* * *

Those first six months, it seemed like he was moments behind her. He'd find a place she'd been days or even hours after she'd left it. She was seeking out healers and hospitals. She left a trail of stumped mediwizards in her wake, and more than a few disgruntled "experts."

And then there was nothing.

For almost a year, he didn't hear anything about her or the odd case she presented at all. He'd worked out that it had something to do with the time travel, with the potions they'd used to send her consciousness back along her timeline.

He went home to Spinner's End. Dumbledore sought him out twice more, telling him they'd brought Slughorn back when he'd up and vanished but that it was only temporary. Slughorn wanted to go back to retirement. The old man tsked over what he thought was the state of the house, and eventually left Severus alone.

Severus viewed the memory again and again. The memory from the other-Severus. It wasn't particularly helpful in and of itself, but the equations were all there. The arithmancy, the recipe. The potion he'd crafted to send her back to win the war. The poison.


	16. Chapter 16 (March 1998)

He found her dying in a Greek hospital. Her healers had those long, sad faces that people got when they'd dedicated their lives to making people better but thought they were failing. He bullied his way past them, his Translation Charm buzzing obnoxiously in his ears, and sat beside her bed while she slept.

She looked horrible, veins showing through her too-pale skin. She looked washed-out; even her hair was limp. She looked peaceful, asleep in the hospital bed with a Mediterranean sun illuminating her. It was a terrifying sort of peaceful, though; a "rest in peace" sort of peaceful.

"I loved you, didn't I?" he asked when she woke. He hadn't been able to think of much else while he sat with her.

"What makes you ask me that?" She didn't seem at all bothered by the question, nor surprised by it. She didn't even seem surprised that he'd found her.

"I asked you, before, if we were lovers. You told me no."

"We never were."

"But we loved each other."

"Very much."

"Why didn't you say so?"

"Would you have wanted to hear it from a thirteen-year-old? Because that was when it was hardest not to tell you." She smiled ruefully. "Or when I was sixteen? Because I noticed that you put every boy who so much as looked at me in detention."

"I didn't do that on purpose," he said, and it was true. It had been one of those subconscious things that he'd only realized he'd been doing in retrospect.

"I was too young, Professor."

"You never used to call me that."

She looked him over, appraising. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.

"How much do you remember?"

"I don't know," he said. "I've been having dreams for years, even more so after the war ended. Flashes. Déjà vu. Nothing linear."

She nodded, then winced. A few minutes passed as she tried to get comfortable again, and then wheezed from the exertion of it.

"I was traumatized, in the beginning," she said. "I was never raped, but playing surrogate was its own sort of horror."

"I remember"

She didn't nod, but she blinked with a sort of deliberateness that gave the impression that she wanted to. "And then, later, you were too old," she said. "To put it bluntly."

"Very bluntly."

She smirked. They sat quietly for a moment, looking at each other. He hadn't meant to ask her about their relationship from before; he'd meant to tell her he might be able to fix her.

"Hermione," he said.

"Severus." She smirked again.

"Why did you leave?"

"I needed help."

"I could have helped you."

"You'd already helped me enough. You didn't need to be saddled with me all over again."

"Idiot woman," he muttered, reaching out to take her hand in his.

* * *

He'd made three versions of a potion to help her. The second one was the one that worked. It needed tinkering, but the hospital was more than happy to lend him their brewing space once they saw his credentials and the impact his brew had had on their difficult patient. By the end of the month, she was up and about.

He stayed with her. He brewed potions for the hospital, earning enough to rent a room nearby. In the time between what she called her episodes, Hermione stayed with him once she was well enough. He took care of her. She told him about things she hadn't before, things from the war—she'd destroyed those horcruxes Dumbledore had talked about, even though she'd had to break into (and, more impressively, out of) Gringott's to get to one of them. When the episodes were too much for him to tend, he brought her back to the hospital and tinkered with the potion over and over until it worked again. She needed less and less potent versions of his original brew as time went on.

And then, after just more than two years, she didn't need the potion at all any more.


	17. Epilogue

They stayed. She'd found the oldest magical hospital in Greece, hidden to the modern Muggles as the ruins of a Byzantine acropolis, and the Healer in Charge nearly doubled his pay as a brewer as an incentive to take him on full-time after Hermione was well. There were mountains on the horizon, and the weather was more than pleasant; it wasn't a difficult decision.

For her part, Hermione made a show of studying up and then sat her N.E.W.T.s at the Office of Education at the Greek Ministry. She took a job at an apothecary.

They bought a house and transformed it using the spells he'd developed for Spinner's End.

When they were planning their wedding, he did his best not to scowl as he wrote out the labels for the invitations going to Weasleys. She filled out the one for Potter.

It was, perhaps, a bit of a paradox that they had fought so hard to make England a better place only to leave once they'd won the war. But the witch was a paradox, anyway; he was used to it. Fond of it, even.

And, this time, she wasn't so traumatized. And he wasn't so old.

END

* * *

A/N: So this was what I wrote when I looked back at my last few fics and realized almost all of them alternated POV between HG and SS. Thank you for sticking with it, I know some of you were frustrated with the more limited perspective at times! Next time I need a prompt for myself, maybe I'll write a version of this from HG's POV and fill in all the gaps and curiosities.

Thank you (always) for the feedback!

— M


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